Stem cells are used for various treatments or operation purposes. In addition, stem cells may be used for plastic or cosmetic surgery and also for the treatment of hair loss, chronic and almost incurable diseases, and pain. The scope of utilization of stem cells is considerably wide, and it is expected to expand further in the future. A stem cell refers to a cell which has the ability of self-renewal and the ability of differentiation into another cells.
Stem cells can be classified largely into embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. In another way of classification, stem cells can be classified into autologous cells and allogenic cells. The allogenic cells may include cord blood stem cells, umbilical cord derived stem cells, placenta derived stem cells or the like. The autologous stem cells can be classified largely into bone marrow derived stem cells and adipose derived stem cells (ADSC). The main cells of these are hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). In a conventional method of separating stem cells, the extraction process progresses by the application of the extraction method in a laboratory. This process has disadvantages in that the extraction method is very fastidious, difficult to learn, and takes a lot of time; contamination can be caused by air pollution and instruments even due to slight carelessness in the extraction process; and considerable differences are made in efficiency by the extracting persons. Because of such reasons, there are needs for easy and simple methods that can also prevent contamination.
The platelet, which is one of the components of blood, contains many types of growth factors such as PDGF and TGF-BETA, which are related to wound healing. Treatment using these growth factors shows a good effect for healing skin diseases and wounds. The growth factors in these platelets are being used in the form of platelet rich plasma (PRP). When centrifugal separation is carried out, most of platelets and white blood cells are positioned in a buffy coat layer generated on an interface between blood cells and plasma. Furthermore, the plasma (platelet poor plasma (PPP)) in blood is being used for various medical purposes.
Hence, there is still a need for a more convenient and advanced method for separating the body fluid components using difference in specific gravity between cells and then extracting each component, for various medical purposes.
In particular, in the case of a adipose-derived stem cell, the quantity extracted in comparison with the volume of the whole stock solution (a mixed liquid of fat and collagenase solution) is small, so it is difficult to obtain a high-purity of stem cells by using a conventional method.
Therefore, in order to separate such body fluids, the present applicant has presented a component separator (Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1179548).
However, in the invention of the above patent, due to an external impact may occur during a separating operation, the separated components may be mixed with each other. Therefore, it is necessary to pay much attention to the operation when separating only a desired component, which may be cumbersome.
See, e.g., Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1179548.